RATS!!!!!?????

Sparktrician · Nov 16, 2008

Ok. Question about rats....Is a rat a "species" of its own....OR....is a rat a very large mouse??? My wife and I were discussing this, and I thought I would ask the experts....Next question....what is the biggest rat you have come in contact (seen, killed or went hand to hand combat) with??

rgvtx · Nov 16, 2008

Mr. Ed · Nov 16, 2008

You need to clean you filthy place up. Rat (Rattus norvegicus), Mouse (Mus musculus).

S.Crum · Nov 16, 2008

I whacked a 3 pounder at work one night a few years ago! Until we got the place in order even stray cats stayed away.

john in la · Nov 16, 2008

Neutra Rats do not count.

Them things are so bad around here the sheriff sends his deputies out every so often to shoot them.

Now just picture that. The local cops are standing in the road in front of your house killing neutra rats in the canal across the street.

Who do you call?????????????????

glennster · Nov 16, 2008

heres a link about rats, norway and roof rat. ahhh rattss!!!
rats

plow hand · Nov 16, 2008

Well,it is a rodent and a rat is a species all it own.It is not an oversize mouse they are seperate the baby rats that I have seen have much larger claws and ears and there tails are longer.The largest rat that I have seen was about 16 in.from tip of nose to the tip of its tail corn fed of course we would kill them for sport and then feed them to some malnourished pigs we got from some lady whose husband died and she could not feed them anymore so she gave my dad a call and we got them for a song and a dance.Later on we got bored with hunting rats so we resorted to D-Con.I hope this is of help to you two and if you ever want to hear more mouse or rat stories I have plenty having said all of that -sweet dreams.

rgvtx · Nov 16, 2008

Darn it John, you weren't supposed to let everyone know about our special southern "Wet Rat"
I used to have a black Lab that would swim for an hour if she had to just to catch and kill on of those silly things. I was always afraid she would drown, but she always won the chase. They swim pretty slow and will look for something to get on to rest, that's when my dog would finish them off.

RobMD · Nov 16, 2008

Does it matter? The only good rat is a dead rat.

john in la · Nov 16, 2008

What ever happen to selling nutria meat and fur.
Dang northerners found out it is not really chicken.
Hunting/Shooting Nutria in New Orleans

JT · Nov 16, 2008

I ahve seen bodies of rats the size of racoons. They were also, corn fed rats in a barn.
shot the with .22 rifles
Jim

S.Crum · Nov 16, 2008

Are those neutra rats what we northerners call a muskrat?

wolfman · Nov 16, 2008

It's like Dad always said: Wasps & snakes only bother you in the summer time - Rats and Politicians aggrevate you all year long.

Spook · Nov 16, 2008

I worked in an old factory years ago. One night we had to go to storage room, we flipped on the light, and saw a rat bigger than most cats. Daam thing just looked at me, waddled over to a hole in the floor and dissappered. The 100 yr old plant had lots of them, and they would actually stalk and kill wild cats that showed up. I never saw a mouse there. I think the rats eat them.

john in la · Nov 16, 2008

No
This is a rodent (not really a rat) that was imported from (I think) South America by some business men that were going to raise them for their fur.
Right about that time the PETA folks got their way and people stopped wearing dead animals.

With no market the farmers just let them go in the swamps. With no natural predators they have taken over the swamp and killed off natural grass.
Nutria are vegetarians.

From what I know about Muskrat they get to about 4 lbs.
A nutria rat can get to 20+ lbs

Anonymous-0 · Nov 16, 2008

I remember Lowell (the mech. on "Wings") saying he shot a 40 pounder at the dump with his pals! neutra rat looks like a musk rat.

NcNE · Nov 16, 2008

We were re-building the wet pit and doing some other concrete work at an ethanol plant once and there were quite a few out there. We would pour concrete in the morning and get the new slab ready in the afternoon. At night we would put a ground thaw machine on the rebar and blanket the slab. The rats would eat the wet distiller corn and then go where it was warm. Some of them got to be the size of cottontail rabbits. Had a couple possums that were so fat their bellies darn near dragged on the ground.

Nancy Howell · Nov 17, 2008

Like leather belts, shoes, jackets, wallets, purses, hats, hatbands, watchbands, boots . . .?

bruster · Nov 17, 2008

There are about 4 different types of rats. Most common one being the Norway, that made it's way to America around 1775 via ship.. Biggest one I trapped and kept as a pet was about 3lbs and around 18" long. That was one smart rodent! Had him for 3 years and he liked to be hand fed.

Mike (WA) · Nov 17, 2008

Biggest problem with nutria around here is they burrow into the dikes protecting the city from flooding, so when flood comes the dikes leak like a sieve. They just repaired the dikes from the Dec. 2007 flood, and mentioned this problem. Don't know if there's any concerted effort to eradicate them, though.

We used to shoot rats at the dump (I even took my .22 to school once, on the bus- can you imagine what would happen if a 14 year old kid openly carried a rifle to school these days?). Dump was on a hill just outside of town- I heard someone called the town marshal when they heard the shots, and he advised that was just the local "rodent eradication program" at work.

RichZ · Nov 17, 2008

Rat and mice are both rodents, but are different species, and even different genuses. There are several species of mice and several species of rats, as well.

Doug in Illinois · Nov 17, 2008

I worked in a grain elevator back in Nebraska from 1975 to 1983, the concrete house had no rat problem, but the old wood frame house on limestone block was full of them. They burrowed between the blocks, and were VERY well corn fed. They also had tunnels coming up by the siding tracks, about once a year we would clean house of them by shoving an Anhydrous Ammonia hose down one of the tunnels and letting it rip. Some of the ones that made it out were huge, they must be somewhat like a mouse as being able to elongate their bodies to go down holes smaller than they are. DOUG

tg in VA · Nov 17, 2008

Back in the 90's I had a Union Carbide sales rep calling on me who said that when he first joined the Company, they sent him to Oak Ridge, TN nuclear facility (which was being run by Unnion Carbide at the time). He said they were in the main auditorium for a presentation when they brought in a rat the size of a dog. He said the rat was tame and wandered around looking for people to pet it. He still had the creeps from that day. He paled and shuddered when I asked him if he petted it...he still had visions of it sniffing him as he sat there...That must have been one big rat. He was pretty straight and told it for the truth.

john in la · Nov 17, 2008

Nutria in Wa state???????
Never knew that. Thought they were a southern problem only.

john in la · Nov 17, 2008

Nancy;
I think we both know there is a differance between using left over parts from a animal that is killed for its meat (Cow leather) and a animal that is killed strictly for its fur and the rest is thrown away.

You make it sound like you protest the killing of any and all animals.

RayP(MI) · Nov 17, 2008

Rats are a separate species, from mice. there are actually several species of rats. Norway rat is most common, and what you are most likely to see in your barn. Remember when I was a teenager, grabbing a rat in my hands, and took both hands to hold it. Probably weighed a couple pounds.I threw it to the floor and stomped it to death before it came to from bouncing off the floor. Oh, to be that quick now!

calf · Nov 17, 2008

http://www.ratkill.com/main.shtml
ratkill

Mike (WA) · Nov 18, 2008

They got started in the '50's here, same way as in your country- new fur industry that never caught on, so growers let 'em loose. I don't know if that was before, or after, the chinchilla fiasco.

RATS!!!!!?????

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